Rex Stephen Hungerford

Rex’s 99 year life included much more than his career as a marketing manager in the aerospace industry. He loved music and played clarinet, sax, piano and organ. He enjoyed his grandsons, talking and joking with them about their lives and interests.

Rex approached life with curiosity. A lifelong learner, in his 40s, he had the self-confidence to study classical western philosophers. In his 60s, when his color TV didn’t work, he took it apart and laid all the components on his living room floor, fixed the problem, and reassembled the set. In his 80’s and 90’s, he studied medical conditions, including age related macular degeneration, from which he suffered, to the extent that he could discuss rods and cones with opthalmologists.

Rex was born the eighth and last child of Stephen J. Hungerford and Lulu M. Goodrich in Dowagiac, Michigan. He overcame extreme poverty as a youth and graduated from Buchanan High School, where he was president of the band. A member of the Greatest Generation, he flew 35 combat missions as a pilot of B-17’s in the 92nd Bomb Group of the 8th Air Force, European Theatre of Operations, 1944-5. He earned his B. S. in electrical engineering from Purdue University in 1947 on the GI bill.
He was called to active duty for the Korean war where he served in Japan.

He married Murelle Mayfield in 1945. They lived in Dayton, Ohio, where their children Rex Jr. and Joan were born. Rex and his family moved to Palos Verdes Estates, CA in 1963, where they resided until Murelle died in 1994 followed by Rex in 2020. He is survived by his son Rex S. Hungerford, Jr., his daughter Joan K. Hungerford Arnall, his daughter-in-law Ellen W. Gallagher Hungerford and four grandsons: Colin and Matthew Arnall; Alexander and Ewen Hungerford.

A graveside service will be held at Green Hills Memorial Park in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA on Friday February 28th at 12:30 p. m.